A Vow of Glory

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hafold hurried through the Queen’s chamber, preparing her morning meal, as she had done every day during her thirty five years in the Queen’s service. Hafold was a precise woman, and she stuck to her schedule like clockwork, crossing the stone chamber as she prepared the queen’s porridge.

On this day, though, she walked twice as fast. For the first time in all her years of service, she was late. She had tossed and turned all night with obscure, ominous dreams, the first nightmares of her life. She had seen King’s Court rise up in flames, people burned alive, screaming all around her.

By the time she had awakened, the first sun was already high in the sky, and Hafold had leapt from her bed, embarrassed. She felt awful at the thought of having made the Queen wait, at arriving at such a late hour. Typically Hafold arrived first, followed by the Queen’s second maidservant, who brought the late morning tea. Now Hafold would have the shame of arriving at the time of the second server. Hafold did not suffer incompetence in others, and she detested it in herself.

Hafold tucked her head, doubled her pace, and held the tray firmly in her trembling hands, hoping the Queen would not be upset with her. Of course, given the Queen’s catatonic state, she was hardly capable of expressing pleasure or displeasure. But Hafold could sense the Queen’s smallest movements. After so many years, the Queen was like a mother and a sister and a daughter to her, all rolled in one. She felt more protective of her than anyone in King’s Court—than anyone in her own family.

Hafold turned the corner, thinking of ways she could make it up to the Queen, and as she raised her head she caught sight of her in the distance, sitting in her chair by the window, staring out with blank eyes as she had for weeks now. There, beside her, stood her second maidservant, tea in hand, right on time; she was a young girl, new to King’s Court, and she poured her tea meticulously into a shining gold cup.

Hafold did not want to disturb them, and so she walked quietly, creeping up behind them without a sound, her soft socks lining her noise on the stone floor. As she neared, prepared to announce herself, she suddenly stopped. Something was wrong.

Hafold watched the maidservant reach quickly into her vest, extract a small sack, spill a white powder into the queen’s tea, then stow it back inside her pocket. She then handed the cup to the Queen, holding it in her limp hand and guiding her to drink it, as she always had.

Hafold’s heart flooded with terror; she dropped her silver platter, the delicate plates crashing to the floor, and raced for the Queen. She reached up and smacked the cup away from her lips. Just in time, she sent the delicate china shattering to the floor.

The serving girl jumped back, looking at Hafold with eyes three times as wide, and Hafold pounced on her, grabbing her roughly by her shirt, yanking open her vest, and pulling out the sack filled with powder. She smelled it, touched the tip of her finger to it and tasted it. She snarled at the girl, who looked absolutely terrified.

“Niamroot,” Hafold said knowingly. “Why are you feeding this to the Queen? Do you know what this does to a person?”

The girl stared back dumbly, trembling.

Hafold’s fury deepened. This was a toxic poison, one designed to kill the brain slowly. Why was this maidservant giving it to her? Looking at how young and stupid she looked, Hafold realized someone else was behind it.

“Who put you up to this?” Hafold pressed, grabbing her more tightly. “Who made you poison our queen? How long has this been going on? ANSWER ME!” she shrieked, reaching back and smacking the girl all her might.

The girl cried out, her body shaking, and between sobs, she said, “The King! The King made me do it! He threatened me. They are his orders. I’m sorry!”

Hafold shook with rage. Gareth. The Queen’s own son. Poisoning his mother. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach.

“How long?” Hafold asked, suddenly wondering how much of the Queen’s condition had to do with the stroke.

The girl cried.

“Since her husband’s death. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. He said it was for her health.”

“Stupid girl,” Hafold shrieked, and threw her halfway across the room. The girl screamed, stumbled, and ran from the chamber, sobbing as she went.

Hafold knelt down beside her Queen, and examined her in a whole new light. From all her years as a nurse, Hafold knew exactly what Niamroot could do—and she also knew how to heal it. Its effects were not permanent, if caught in time.

Hafold pulled the Queen’s eyelids low, saw the yellowish color beneath them, and confirmed she was a victim of this poison. Hafold felt certain that this was why she had been catatonic. It was not from mourning her late husband. It was from being poisoned by her son.

She had to hand it to Gareth: he had chosen the perfect timing to poison her, to make it seem to the world as if his mother were merely in mourning. He was even more devious than she had thought.

Hafold crossed the chamber, rifled through each drawer of her medicine chest, and found the yellow liquid that she needed. With trembling hands she mixed a drop in a cup of water, then hurried back and put it to the Queen’s mouth, forcing her to drink.

The Queen drank and drank, shaking her head, trying to stop, but Hafold forced her to drink the whole thing.

After the Queen, protesting, emptied the cup, finally, the Queen shook her head and reached up and pushed Hafold’s hand away.

Hafold was shocked and delighted. It was the first time the Queen had raised her hand in weeks.

“What are you making me drink?” the Queen demanded.

Hafold leapt in joy at the sound of her voice, her first words, realizing she was back. She reached out and hugged the queen—the first time she had hugged her in her thirty five years of serving her.

The Queen, back to her old self, indignant, stood and gasped.

“My Queen, my Queen!” Hafold cried. “You’ve come back to me!”

The Queen shoved Hafold off, her old proud self.

“What do you speak of?” the Queen demanded. “Come back where?”

“You’ve been poisoned,” Hafold explained. “Gareth has poisoned you!”

The Queen’s eyes widened slowly, in recognition, and suddenly, she understood.

“Bring me to him,” the Queen commanded.

Queen MacGil marched down the corridors of King’s Court, corridors she knew too-well, Hafold beside her, feeling herself again. For the first time in she did not know how long she felt aware, filled with energy. She also felt infused with rage, and eager to confront her son.

With every step she took, the more she was beginning to come back to herself, the more it was dawning on her what exactly had happened, the role her son had played. It made her sick, and a part of her still did not want to believe it. What could she have done so wrong to raise such a monster?

“My Queen, this is not such a good idea,” Hafold said beside her. “We should leave this place at once, flee while we can. Who knows how Gareth might react—he might have you killed. We must get far from this place. We must go to Silesia, to Gwendolyn. You will be cared for there.”

“Not until I speak to my son,” she said.

Nothing would keep the queen from knowing the truth, from hearing the words from Gareth himself. Queen MacGil had never been one to back away from a confrontation, and she was not about to begin now—and certainly not from her own son.

The Queen slammed open the familiar door to her late husband’s study, resentful that her son could think he could occupy it. She gasped as she stood at the threshold of the room, horrified at the sight of the place, her late husband’s precious books and scrolls scattered and torn on the floor, the room in shambles, destroyed.

There, across the room, sitting slumped in a chair, looking up at her with an impervious smile, was her son.

Gareth sat in the center of all of this, and looked up at her with black, soulless eyes. She could smell the faint odor of opium in the air. He hadn’t shaved in days, there were dark bags beneath his eyes, his clothes were soiled, and he looked as if he’d gone mad. He looked nothing like the son she had mothered, the boy she had raised. Being king had aged him twenty years, and she almost did not recognize him.

“Mother,” he said flatly, hardly looking surprised to see her. “You have finally come to see me.”

The Queen scowled down at him

“What have you done to my husband’s study?” she demanded.

Gareth laughed.

“I don’t think he’ll be needing it now,” Gareth said, “but I find it quite an improvement, don’t you?”

The queen stormed forward.

“Did you poison me?” she asked.

Gareth stared back, expressionless.

“We found the powder, today, on the servant girl, my lord,” Hafold interjected. “She said you commanded her to.”

“Is it true?” the queen asked softly, hoping it was not.

Gareth slowly shook his head.

“Mother mother mother,” he said. “Why should you take a sudden concern to me now, after all these years? When I was young, you reserved all of your love for Reece. Kendrick was the best of all of us, but you couldn’t bring yourself to love him because he was your husband’s bastard. Godfrey disappointed you in his taverns. Luanda had one foot out the door and was no threat to you. And Gwendolyn—well, she was a girl, and you were too threatened to love her.

“So Reece found your love. And the rest of us were looked over. I did not exist for you. It took my doing all of this for you to finally acknowledge me.”

The Queen’s scowl deepened; she was in no mood for Gareth’s sophistry.

“Is it true?” she repeated.

Gareth chuckled.

“The truth has many layers, doesn’t it?” he said. “What would it matter if you were poisoned? Your life had turned a corner, you were inching towards the grave. A queen without a king. I can’t think of anything more useless.”

Queen MacGil felt a rage boiling up inside. She felt sick to her stomach.

“You are an abomination of a son,” she spat back at him. “An abomination of a human being. I’m sorry I ever had you.”

“I know that you are, mother,” he said calmly. “I’ve known that since the day you had me. But you see, there’s nothing you can do about it now. Because finally, I am free from your reach, from father’s reach. Now, I command you,” he said loudly, standing, his face turning red with anger. “Now, you are my subject. And with the snap of my fingers, I can have an attendant kill you. Your life is at my mercy.”

“Do it then,” she seethed back, unafraid, equally determined. “Don’t be the cowardly boy you’ve always been. Be a man, as your father was, and have me killed face-to-face. Better yet, draw the sword and do the deed yourself.”

Gareth sat there, trembling.

“You can’t do it, can you?” she asked. “No. Instead, you have your little attendant run around and poison me slowly. You are a coward. You always have been. You are a disgrace to your father’s memory.”

Gareth suddenly reached into his belt, drew a dagger, raised it high and charged for his mother with a horrific scream. As he neared, he brought the blade down, right for her face.

But Queen MacGil was the daughter of a King and wife to another. She had been around violence her entire life, had been trained by the royal guard from the time she could walk. As Gareth charged, she calmly reached over, grabbed a stone bust of her husband, waited until he got close, then stepped aside and swung it for Gareth’s head.

She connected perfectly, dodging his blade and impacting his skull, sending him crashing back into a wooden table, knocking it over as he collapsed and slumped against the wall.

Gareth lay there, breathing hard, bleeding from his head, and blinked several times. He tried to sit up, dazed, and wiped the blood from the back of his mouth. At least it had wiped the smile from his face.

“I’m through with you,” the queen said down to him, coldly. “From this day forward, you are not my son. I want you to know that. You are not even a stranger. You are nothing to me. I will leave this place, and never come back as long as you rule. I know now, with certainty, that it was you who took my husband from me. And for that, you will rot in hell. “Don’t think you will not pay. I’ve been told the shield is down. Soon the Empire’s men will flood this place and burn it to the ground—and you will burn with them.”

Gareth suddenly laughed, blood pouring from his lips.

“I doubt that, mother,” he said. “Many people have tried to kill me. But they do not succeed. This morning my royal taster dropped dead before my eyes—another unsuccessful plot on my life. And yesterday I learned that the closest to me will come to kill me tomorrow at dawn. I have no allies. But I have spies. And I have the devil on my side. You see, no one has ever been able to kill me, mother. And no one ever will. And I am always one step ahead of them, mother. That is the one thing you never understood about me. I am always one step ahead.”

Gareth laughed, shaking, and Queen MacGil had enough.

She turned and stormed from the room, Hafold beside her, and slammed it behind her, hearing her son’s laughter echo and knowing it was the last time she would ever step foot in King’s Court again.